Debbie Epstein, Sarah O’Flynn and David Telford, Silenced Sexualities in Schools
and Universities, Trentham Books, £15.95
This feels as if it ought to be an important book. The issue of how schools deal
with young gay and lesbian people is one that rarely gains serious attention. The
heavy shadow of Clause 28 no doubt makes many schools edgy about dealing
openly with such matters.
But the thesis of this book isn’t simply that schools need to have strategies in place
for promoting respect for the full range of sexualities; in fact, it provides little by
way of guidance. Instead it is a diatribe against the education system at all levels.
So primary schools are “sites for the production and enforcement of normative
heterosexuality and ‘stable marriages’ for the purposes of procreation, love and
security”. Secondary school discos encourage students to depict themselves as
“feminine and masculine in iconically heterosexual and exaggerated ways”.
The language is obscure and jargon-ridden, the tone uncompromisingly accusing
and borders on becoming hysterical. Thus “in the UK … a version of ‘tolerance’
seems to be the best that non-heterosexual (or non-normatively heterosexual)
people can expect.”
TI take the authors’ point that “where there is power there is always resistance”,
but I don’t think of any of us working in schools will find it helpful to be cast
automatically as the oppressors. That said, a negative review like this will no
doubt be perceived as an act of heterosexual subjugation.
This is a missed opportunity to write constructively about a centrally important
subject for all of us working with young people.
Alasdair Campbell and Deborah Gibbons (eds), Bringing the Past to Life,
Librarians of Institutes and Schools of Education (LISE) Publications, £10.50
Harry Potter hype aside, one of the more depressing statistics about our reading
habits is that more people leave UK bookshops without buying a book than with
one. We know that we want to read, but we don’t know what to choose.
This book provides a helpful survey of high quality historical children’s fiction. It
gives a thumbnail sketch of a range of titles that depict historical periods up to
1750. Thus the big guns of children’s literature are here – Geoffrey and Henry
Trease, Rosemary Sutcliff and Peter Dickinson – alongside more recent writers.
In this way the editors usefully illuminate a tradition of writing for children and,
because of their emphasis on the quality of the historical depiction, they provide us
with an excellent, easy-to-use guide which will help librarians and English
teachers to nudge students in the direction of this tradition.
The introduction pithily sets out the terms of the book, and quickly explores the
arguments for and against encountering history through fiction. Then a
chronological sequence begins that lists a “lead title” – a key work that addresses a
historical period – followed by other examples. Each is given a well-honed
summary, a kind of taster, which shows the editor’s expertise in their field.
Librarians and English teachers will find this a helpful guide to a sub-genre of
children’s fiction that can easily be marginalised by other more glamorous
categories of fiction.
Judith Elkin, Briony Train, Debbie Denham, Reading and Reader Development,
Facet Publishing, £39.95
In an age which tends to talk only of literacy, it’s refreshing to be reminded of the
joy of reading. This book – though an expensive investment for any school library
of literacy coordinator – is a comprehensive survey of what we need to know
about reading.
Its opening chapter by Judith Elkin brims with enthusiasm for the sheer absorbing
pleasure of reading. At a time when people too glibly lament the days of reading
for enjoyment, this chapter reminds us of why so many of us like nothing more
than – as an English professor of mine used to say – “curling up with an old
friend”.
It is crammed with quotations from a range of readers on their experiences of
reading, some of which are almost mystical: “I can always tell when you’re
reading somewhere in the house. There’s a special silence, a reading silence,” says
Francis Spufford. Those of us who can’t sit at breakfast without reading
something, and who would find the thought of not having a novel on the go at all
times unthinkable, will find much here that is familiar.
Other parts of the book explore reading in different contexts. Briony Train
explores reader development – describing trends in the library service, reading
groups, and technology. Other chapters focus on international perspectives,
multicultural issues, ICT, special needs and reader development research.
It is an astonishingly comprehensive survey of where we are in our knowledge of
reading and, refreshingly, written with a real sense of passion and enthusiasm for
this most important human activity.
David Seymour and Emily Seymour (eds), A Century of News, Contender Books,
£14.99
Unfashionably, I like my history served up chronologically. I know I ought to like
flitting between historical periods, spotting links and themes, but I like the
reassurance of cause and effect, old-fangled as I know this makes me.
One of the beauties of this book is that history unfolds sequentially through the
front pages of the Daily Mirror. This is interesting for a number of reasons. The
right hand page always gives a facsimile of the newspaper. We therefore see not
only the great events of the last century – the Titanic, the vote for women, the
Great War, and so on – but the development of a great newspaper and, by
association, our culture.
The Mirror was originally billed as the first newspaper produced by women for
women. Much of its social campaigning has been genuinely ground-breaking.
History teachers will welcome the book for its resources, which include
commentaries on the news, context for the stories, and a list of other key dates.
English teachers will like the opportunity to explore the development of language,
typography and news values, at a time when our need for quality non-fiction texts
was never greater.
A copy of this book is being sent free to every secondary school. Don’t let
someone nab your copy for their own coffee table (it’s that kind of endlessly
browsable book). Grab it and find a way of using it with your students.